Hard To Say Goodbye
by Miss-Hermione-Granger91
Summary: A little missing moment set at Christmas during OOTP, inspired by the song 'Photograph' by Nickelback. Sirius is looking through the attic at Grimmauld Place, and comes some familiar faces...


Disclaimer: Harry belongs to JK Rowling, I am merely borrowing him and his godfather (if he was mine Sirius would NOT be dead...) and the song, "Photograph," belongs to Nickelback. I own nothing.

Please read & review!!

First fic, so while I like CONSTRUCTIVE critisicm, please don't be too harsh!! :)

_Look at this photograph__  
__Everytime I do it makes me laugh__  
__How did our eyes get so red__  
__And what the hell is on Joey's head_

Sirius swore under his breath as the box he was lifting fell back down onto his foot.  
"Trust Molly to want to make paper chains the Muggle way," he muttered as he finally shifted the box aside and went back to his hunt for coloured paper. A loud shriek and a crash from the floor below made him sit bolt upright, wand in hand, but Hermione's' hysterical laughter from two floors below reminded him that there were six teenagers in the house, and that the trio had no volume buttons at the best of times. As he lowered his wand and turned back, a smaller box caught his eye. Plain, not like the ornate chests of the Black family. Curious. And even more strange, it was _red and gold._ Certainly didn't belong to his parents then. Leaning across a ghastly portrait of a house elf which was complaining at him for creating dust, Sirius picked up the box and opened the lid. As soon as he did so, he remembered what it was. Three boys beamed up at him, arm in arm. The first was carelessly handsome, with long black hair and mischievous blue eyes. He had the second boy in a mock headlock, and was ruffling his already messy black hair. Sirius felt a pang as he looked into a face which was almost identical to one downstairs, just with hazel eyes. To the left of the fighting pair stood a tired looking young man, looking disapprovingly at them, but with a smile pulling at his lips. Sirius remembered the day the picture had been taken as though it were yesterday.

"Hurry up Wormtail we'll be married by the time you take it!"  
"And we all know who you'd like to be married to eh Prongs!" Smirked Sirius, grabbing his best friend and putting him into a headlock, ruffling his hair.  
"Gerrof! I'm telling you, one day she'll fall for me, and then you'll be sorry!"  
The pair began to have a mock fight. Remus stood beside them, trying to be a good Prefect, but he couldn't help but laugh at the expression on James' face as he tried to pull free. SNAP! The camera went off, immortalising the moment forever.

_And this is where I grew up__  
__I think the present owner fixed it up__  
__I never knew we'd ever went without__  
__The second floor is hard for sneaking out_

Sirius picked up the next photo, one of Grimmauld Place in its heyday. It was a Christmas shot, and Sirius could just see the edge of his arm as he sulked just out of shot. His stomach turned as he saw Bellatrix and Narcissa, arguing over one thing or another. He was 15 when this was taken, the same age Harry was now. Sirius was determined to give Harry the sort of Christmas neither of them had ever had.

_And this is where I went to school__  
__Most of the time had better things to do__  
__Criminal record says I broke in twice__  
__I must have done it half a dozen times_

Sirius laughed out loud as he saw the next picture. It was the night Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup, and James had thought it would be a good idea to break into McGonagall's office. Needless to say, he was caught. The picture depicted a red faced James, being yelled at by McGonagall for eternity.

_I wonder if it's too late__  
__Should I go back and try to graduate__  
__Life's better now than it was back then__  
__If I was them I wouldn't let me in_

_Oh, oh, oh__  
__Oh, god, I_

_Every memory of looking out the back door__  
__I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor__  
__It's hard to say it, time to say it__  
__Goodbye, goodbye.__  
__Every memory of walking out the front door__  
__I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for__  
__It's hard to say it, time to say it__  
__Goodbye, goodbye.__  
_  
Emotion welled up as he came across a picture of Lily and James in the Potters' backyard. There had been a large deck leading to the generous garden, and many a memorable time had been spent sitting there. James had announced Lily said yes on that porch. Lily told them she was pregnant there. James asked Sirius to be Harrys' godfather sitting in that very chair. Harry had almost been _born_ on the deck, when Lily went into labour. It was a place to gather your thoughts, or see your friends. First thing in the morning when no-one was up, during the day for a breather, those long summer evenings where the group of them would stay up for hours talking and laughing. But it was never going to happen again. As Sirius gazed down upon a scene he remembered so well, it seemed so long ago that it finally, truly hit Sirius for the first time. James wasn't coming back.

_Remember the old arcade__  
__Blew every dollar that we ever made__  
__The cops hated us hangin' out__  
__They say somebody went and burned it down_

"Now that was a day!" He remembered through his tears, looking at a snap of him and James in Hogsmede. Their first stop was always Zonkos - a tradition, he heard, that the Golden Trio were upholding only too well. On this particular day they had been looking for someone to try out their new 'Paint Puffs' on - just blow out cold air, and cover your opponents in paint. The trouble was, it hit a seventh year Slytherin decidedly bigger than the both of them, so they had decided it was time to go. After running to the hill above the Shrieking Shack, James had breathlessly demanded a picture to commemorate painting a Slytherin.

_We used to listen to the radio__  
__And sing along with every song we know__  
__We said someday we'd find out how it feels__  
__To sing to more than just the steering wheel__  
_  
"I highly doubt we were noisier than them," Sirius muttered to himself as he heard a loud rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs," start up from the trio, and remembered how the original Marauders were pulled up more than once for being too loud. Now that he thought about it, the trio downstairs were almost carbon copies of the real Marauders (he didn't count Peter any more, following what happened.) Hermione and Remus could be related, with their love of books and eagerness to learn. Sirius saw himself in Ron all the time, especially when it came to having a sense of humour or eating! And Harry was just like James, only perhaps kinder. But he didn't think Harry was James, despite what Molly thought. This realisation only made his best friend seem further away, and the tears began to flow properly as he picked up the next shot.

_Kim's the first girl I kissed__  
__I was so nervous that I nearly missed__  
__She's had a couple of kids since then__  
__I haven't seen her since god knows when__  
_  
He was stood with his arm round his flame-of-the-week, Isabella White. He remembered James teasing him about their names - Black and White, and telling them they would have a child called Grey next. But what really hurt was seeing James beside him, arm proudly round Lily, who had been his girlfriend for 2 months by this point. They looked so happy, and again in a connection to the present, in the right light the couple could easily have been Harry and Hermione. Though Sirius had been pleased when the latter started dating, it was always a little unnerving to see their resemblance as a couple to James and Lily; in looks as well as attitude.

_Oh, oh, oh__  
__Oh, god, I_

_Every memory of looking out the back door__  
__I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor__  
__It's hard to say it, time to say it__  
__Goodbye, goodbye.__  
__Every memory of walking out the front door__  
__I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for__  
__It's hard to say it, time to say it__  
__Goodbye, goodbye._

The next bunch of pictures were what completely broke Sirius. Him and James, arm in arm after Quidditch, messing around in the common room, laughing over breakfast, playing tricks on each other. The two of them with blue hair after annoying Lily, hopping down the street, out in Hogsmede, James' wedding day, and the final picture ever taken of them.

_I miss that town__  
__I miss the faces__  
__You can't erase__  
__You can't replace it__  
__I miss it now__  
__I can't believe it__  
__So hard to stay__  
__Too hard to leave it__  
_  
Two days before Lily and James were killed. James had put a baby Harry on his toy broomstick, and Sirius was looking furtively to check Lily wasn't watching. Suddenly she came out of nowhere, and the expression on both his own and James' face made him laugh through his tears, even more so when Harry zoomed off expertly without a care.

_If I could I relive those days__  
__I know the one thing that would never change_

_Every memory of looking out the back door__  
__I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor__  
__It's hard to say it, time to say it__  
__Goodbye, goodbye.__  
__Every memory of walking out the front door__  
__I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for__  
__It's hard to say it, time to say it__  
__Goodbye, goodbye.__  
_  
And now Sirius realised, and accepted. James was gone. Forever. He'd never forget him, never 'get over it,' but he now knew it was true, and it hurt like hell. But the things in these pictures, the memories they had made, those were still here. And they'd never fade. There was a little boy downstairs, (no matter how old he got Sirius would always see him as 'little'.) who was a part of Lily and James, along with a whole new generation of hopes and pranks and ideas. They were the present, the future. Shutting the lid, Sirius put the box aside to take to his room, and as he did so caught sight of the box containing paper and pencils. Somehow, he'd known they were there all along. Picking up the two boxes, he stood up, listening with a smile to the raucous pillow fight occurring below him.  
"He's done you proud James. All of them are good kids. And I'll guard him with my life, I promise you."  
Reaching the stairs, Sirius raised his wand to douse the lamps, and as he did so, felt a breeze stroke his cheek. He raised his hand to feel tears there again.  
"Goodbye Prongs."

_Look at this photograph__  
__Everytime I do it makes me laugh__  
__Everytime I do it makes me..._


End file.
